


peace comes at dawn

by gift



Category: SuperM (Korea Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Misunderstandings, Pining, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 10:28:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24349549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gift/pseuds/gift
Summary: Mark’s voice is soft and rough, close to a whisper but not quite. “Are you in love with me?”Maybe Mark is expecting a long, drawn out pause before Ten delivers some fatal, dramatic blow. Ten thinks Mark is like that.
Relationships: Mark Lee/Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten
Comments: 18
Kudos: 120





	peace comes at dawn

**Author's Note:**

> i was in love w/ a girl i met at 12 yrs old and at 25 i finally told her i loved her. anyways we broke up and i burned that bridge bc of [insert my birth chart here or something].
> 
> sorry i havent posted since november. i was busy ignoring red flags ♥
> 
> here's some word vomit coping projected onto my favorite boys that i wrote on my phone at 12 am.

“Are you in love with me or something?” Ten drawls, smile on his face, in tired, lightly accented English. His cheek is smushed into the pillow. He peeks at Mark, clearly on the verge of sleep, bare chested and on his back under Ten’s hotel duvet. Mark seems annoyed at the joke. 

“Dude, shut up.” Mark tries to make it sound mean. Ten can tell. 

Ten has grown tired of how easily annoyed Mark has gotten in the last couple of years. Pushing away Ten’s affection, jokes, attempts at skinship off camera—when it’s just with the members and even with just the two of them. It’s been better the last year; it has been. And Ten knows Mark is still in a transitional phase of this weird, paradoxical childish adulthood. 

But there’s still a smile in Mark’s voice he isn’t able to take away, and it gives Ten the confidence to prod further. 

“Psh,” Ten pushes out through pursed lips, a raspberry forming as he does so. “A half naked Mark Lee in _my_ hotel room, under _my_ covers, allowing me to put _my_ arm on his chest.”

Mark bites back almost immediately, though Ten is sure he wishes he could ignore it and fall asleep instead. “Ten, Jesus,” Mark grunts out, turning on his side to face away from Ten. Ten has struck a nerve, but Mark never shoves Ten’s arm away. 

“Bro, like, I was just kidding,” Ten says in attempt to soften the mood and pull even a small amount of frustration out of Mark—have it dissipate into the air. He doesn’t want to admit he’s in the wrong for his teasing just as much as he feels hurt over—over whatever _this_ is. Whatever it has been since whenever. Since they became the same yet significantly different people who happen to share the same memories with each other. A brewing of sexuality and comfort and familiarity and progression—degression, discomfort, confusion, distance. Whatever.

Ten cannot believe they are still the same people they are—that is, the same souls who have always been housed in these ever changing bodies. That their minds and hearts haven’t been taken out time and time again and put into new but familiar corporeal messes of flesh and bone and blood that attempt to pretend they know and understand each other as if they had always. 

Mark just makes a scoff of disbelief that comes from his throat and nose. 

Ten moves his arm from Mark’s waist, and Mark’s head and neck tick for almost a split second as if he were about to look behind him. 

“You’re a freaking baby,” is all Ten says before turning his back towards Mark’s own. He knows he should tell him to leave. But Mark, of his own autonomy, is still laying in stark white sheets stained silver-blue by the moon in the window. 

Moments pass. Ten isn’t sure how many. It feels like a long time. 

Mark’s voice is soft and rough, close to a whisper but not quite. “Are you in love with me?”

Maybe Mark is expecting a long, drawn out pause before Ten delivers some fatal, dramatic blow. Ten thinks Mark is like that. 

“No,” Ten replies instantly. “Not in the way you’re asking,” he adds. Because Ten _does_ love Mark. It is something like _in love_ but not _really_ Ten notices a light turn out in a window of the building across the street. 

Mark doesn’t say anything, and Ten feels the growing pulse of anxiety radiate dully in his chess. Not able to hold himself back, Ten rolls over to face Mark—half expecting to see his face, but he’s only met with the knobs and curve of Mark’s spine and beauty-marked flesh. 

Ten begins. “Are you—”

The duvet is thrown over Mark’s hips to free his legs before Mark pushes himself from the bed in a nervous jerk. “I think I’ll actually sleep in my room,” Mark tells him, voice faltering behind a facade of calm and collected. 

Ten props himself on his elbow fast enough for it to hurt. “Mark!” is all he can say. It comes out so desperately worried that it feels ridiculous.

With his fingers resting delicately on the door handle, Mark stops, shoulders tensed. “I really don’t think I can do this.” His voice is small and whispered and Ten hates to describe it as pitiful. But that’s what it is. 

“Just—just come back, okay? Just forget it. I teased you too much. Just come back and we’ll go to sleep.”

Mark pushes the handle of the door downwards. 

“Please,” Ten says with diluted exasperation. 

Mark’s shoulders untense and fall before he turns, slowly—seemingly thinking about what he really wants to do next—and shuffles his socked feet across the floor. His knees press into the bed, and Ten feels his body dip at the weight. 

He doesn’t speak to Ten, but Ten doesn’t care. 

Mark falls to his side, facing Ten, and Ten can’t help but feel sorry for how exhausted Mark looks at this moment. A deeper tired than just overwork. A certain sad exhaustion that drenches his features and shines his eyes and breaks down his muscles. 

“Come in closer?” Ten asks. And wordlessly, Mark does. 

Ten adjusts them what feels like a bogging exertion he’s surprised he can’t handle. Limbs tired, muscles aching, chest tight—Ten cradles Mark like he knows Mark needs. 

Ten knows Mark is probably not in love with him. Not in actuality. Not _really_. Maybe in fleeting moments. Blurs of feelings and chemicals and confusion and sexual tension that pass in an instant. Not always, not often. But he knows that, right now, Mark feels it more than he ever has tonight due to his fragility caused by everything up until this moment. Mark is needy; he needs comfort. Ten wants to give him everything. Cherish him and hold him and tell him everything is going to be okay. That life might not always be this hard. That he loves him. And Ten knows in another timeline, if there wasn’t someone else—other people—and other responsibilities taking up most of Ten’s cognition, Mark may just be what he wants and needs utterly. Maybe just as his friend. Maybe as a lover. Outside of this giant shit storm of fame and idols.

He really can see it. Meeting him somewhere mundane during his normal, everyday routine. Encountering him regularly after that and receiving shy interactions hidden by a cocky little personality. Ten smiles inwardly over it and the dull anxiety from before turns into a thrumming, warm ache. A date here and there. A rough first kiss in Ten’s apartment. Mark’s shaking fingers at the hem of Ten’s shirt. Maybe Ten met him studying abroad. Or vice versa.

Ten pulls Mark closer. He can feel Mark’s warm breath against his neck, Ten’s chin pressed into his hair, and sweeps his fingers in soothing circles on Mark’s skin. 

Mark is tired, and so Ten will allow this brief instance of being in love.

**Author's Note:**

> am i allowed to just start screaming


End file.
